p In the meantime the committee was becoming increasingly worried about Sverdlov’s continued presence in Ekaterinburg, where his position became more insecure with every passing day, which made his work more difficult. It was, after all, a fluid situation; our so-called constitutional freedoms were being revoked. During the revolution we had felt that it did not much matter if the secret service had a lead on some of us, but now that the forces of reaction were again gathering strength and any one of us might be arrested at any time, such a casual attitude had become inadmissible.

p Every spy, every detective in town was out looking for Andrei, their zeal fed by the promise of reward. Moreover, he had spoken at so many meetings during the days of ‘freedom’ and so many people knew him by sight that he could easily have been identified and arrested.

p We protected him as best we could, of course, and few people knew where he went, where he slept, or who his contacts were. Visitors saw him only if the strictest secrecy was observed: no addresses were ever given and no rendezvous points agreed in advance; his contacts were brought to him by particularly dependable comrades. All the same, 19 we knew that he would be exposing himself to great risk if he stayed in Ekaterinburg any longer.

p The committee ultimately decided that it was time he left for Perm, where hardly anyone would recognise him—although everyone had heard of him—and where he would be safer. This move was essential to the future of our work. By 1906 Sverdlov was in effective control of all Party activities in the Urals, was continually on the move, visiting towns and remote factories, and generally directing all our work. For him unity was an issue of paramount importance and now unity was in sight. There were reliable Party members in every area of importance and it was time to form a regional Party organisation.

p At that time Perm served as the administrative centre for almost the entire Urals and had the huge Motovilikha Factory nearby. Therefore it was the obvious place to establish the regional Party HQ.

p So Sverdlov was to go to Perm—but how? He obtained a passport through Lev Gerts, the student, son of a local school mistress, but the problem was in getting him out of Ekaterinburg, where there was only one railway station, which, though little frequented, had its own police guard. Absolutely no one escaped this man’s notice and he could certainly recognise Andrei, having often seen him during the days of ‘freedom’. One of our most artful comrades was given the job of somehow getting this gendarme out of the way or at least of distracting his attention while Andrei got on the train.

p When the day came, the comrade in question turned up at the station looking like a lord. His beautiful fur coat with its beaver collar hung open, revealing an expensive suit, an impressive waistcoat and the gleam of a golden watch chain. We had borrowed it all from a rich liberal sympathiser, who had no idea, of course, of how we were going to use the outfit he had lent us.

p Tapping the floor nonchalantly with his ivory-headed cane, the ‘gentleman’ entered the first class waiting room in the grand manner and beckoned to the gendarme.

p ‘I say, my man—get me a first class ticket for Perm and look sharp! You can keep the change.’

p The gentleman looked so fine and behaved with such style, and the wallet from which he casually drew the money to pay for his ticket was so plump—the gendarme was most impressed. On top of that the generous gentleman gave a condescending nod towards the refreshments counter and treated him to a couple of glasses of brandy, tossing some silver coins at the attendant.

p The guard, bubbling over with enthusiasm, galloped off to the ticket window, pushing at anyone in his way, and thrust the money over the 20 counter. Incidentally, the police, gendarmes and other guardians of public order were always happy to run errands like that for people with money.

p Although he did his job with all dispatch, it took him five or ten minutes to get hold of the ticket, during which time the train pulled in and Andrei boarded it unnoticed, his face swathed in a scarf as though he had toothache. In all the confusion before the train left the ’ gentleman’ passed the ticket to Andrei through a third party, the flag went up, the train gave a whistle and Swerdlov left Ekaterinburg safely on a ticket bought for him by an over-zealous official.

p I had been ordered to find a safe place for Andrei in Perm and had arrived there a few days before. At first I took a room in a hotel—a ’rooming house’ as they were called in those days—feeling justified in taking such a risk because we both had false papers and were practically unknown in the town. We stayed there for a week or so. As a rule underground workers never did this, and it was but a poor second best, but there were no reliable clandestine flats in Perm and 1 could never have recommended a place that was, or could have been, under police surveillance.

p We had lived together in Ekaterinburg, and continued to do so in Perm. We had never legalised our relationship and in fact it was hard for a revolutionary in tsarist Russia to have a legal wedding. Of course we were against a church wedding in principle—and moreover a man with false documents who took himself off to church and gave his real name would have been arrested immediately.

p We certainly did not feel that it was a vital omission—our family was so much closer-knit than many that were bolstered by all the formalities. The ‘irregularity’ of our position only distressed us when we were later separated by the police and denied even the right of seeing each other.

The re-allocation of our Party duties meant that Sverdlov, in addition to directing Party activity in the Urals, had to revive the organisations in Perm and Motovilikha. My duties were confined to Perm.